While the Johan Grobbelaar red card was a major turning point, Bulls coach Jake White believes his team were “good enough and should have won” instead of losing 23-22 to the Scarlets in Llanelli on Friday night.
The Bulls relinquished their unbeaten record in the United Rugby Championship despite leading 19-7 in the first half, as a series of wasted attacking opportunities, Grobbelaar’s sending-off and the Scarlets’ fighting spirit combined to make it a miserable night in the rain for the visitors.
The Pretoria side played some classy rugby in the opening 40 minutes, with Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse prominent with ball-in-hand and scoring tries, while the likes of Cobus Wiese, Cameron Hanekom and Nama Xaba did the hard yards upfront.
But they were often on the wrong side of Italian referee Federico Vedovelli’s whistle, particularly at the breakdowns, while they weren’t rewarded for scrum dominance and also battled in the lineouts.
The decisive moment, though, came in the 67th minute when Grobbelaar was sent off for supposedly making head contact with Scarlets hooker Marnus van der Merwe – a former Cheetahs player – in a tackle.
But while the TV replays didn’t show ‘clear and obvious’ evidence of any head contact – as it appeared as if Van der Merwe ran into Grobbelaar’s shoulder – Vedovelli felt otherwise.
Jake White is not looking for any excuses as the Vodacom Bulls lose their 100% record in the #VURC 🗣![CDATA[]]>🏉
Even the often partial Welsh commentators felt Grobbelaar was hard done by, and soon after his departure, wing Tom Rogers scored the winning try by stepping past poor tackle attempts by Arendse, Moodie and Embrose Papier.
The rain started to fall at Parc y Scarlets at around the hour mark, and the Bulls battled to adjust to the slippery conditions in the final quarter.
“I got some information from the locals here that the wind comes from the left to the right-hand side, and I was tempted to take the right side – because we won the toss – because I heard the rain was going to come and the wind was (going to have an effect),” White said.
“And somehow I just thought that we might be lucky and that it would not be an influence at the back-end of the game.
“But it just made it more difficult, when we were going into the wind and into the rain, to be more accurate.
“Sometimes it’s like cricket, and you win the toss and take a chance. If we hadn’t got that weather at the back-end of the game, maybe things would’ve been different.
“But it turned out that playing into that rain and wind, for a short period of time, became difficult for us.
“When you start coaching, you have hair and you’re young. And when you leave, you look like you’ve been driving on a dirt road...
“I’ve been in this for a long time and I’m not going to take the bait (to criticise the referee). We were good enough and we should’ve won. We could’ve won – we had all the opportunities.
“And we played a team like the Scarlets that never went away.”
White felt Grobbelaar didn’t deserve a red card, adding that an “orange card” may need to be introduced in future to differentiate between “rugby incidents” and foul play.
It's déjà vu for the Vodacom Bulls in Wales 😲![CDATA[]]>🟥
📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNho4A4 pic.twitter.com/cnnHqwikEU
“There is so much debate now. There are red cards for 20 minutes, head contact, gum guards that are coming out... So, we’ve got to find a middle road. Players lie down all the time if they get knocked, and then you’ve got a risk of losing him for next week with a HIA,” the former Springbok coach said.
“That’s what makes it so difficult: we must be very strict on head contact. I’ve got sons who played rugby, and you don’t want a situation where you neglect that.
“But it’s a difficult one because it is a game where people run hard at each other, and there is such little time for getting it right and getting it wrong.
“It is difficult every week. I mean, I saw things tonight that will be fine next week or last week, and I saw things tonight that wouldn’t have been good enough last week.”
The Bulls will now travel to Italy to face Benetton in Treviso next Friday (8.35pm start).
Points-Scorers
Bulls 22 – Tries: Canan Moodie, Zak Burger, Kurt-Lee Arendse. Conversions: Boeta Chamberlain (2). Penalty: Chamberlain (1).
Scarlets 23 – Tries: Josh MacLeod, Blair Murray, Tom Rogers. Conversions: Ioan Lloyd (1). Penalties: Lloyd (1), Sam Costelow (1).